Captain Courageous
by ObsessedRomantic
Summary: SergeantHeretic here once more with a story about a very special Army Oficer on the Ponderosa, please please PLEASE read it and REVIEW IT, guys, seriously, would it kill you?
1. Downfall

The war had been over for less that one year. The Union had prevailed. The Federal Government of the United States of America was now the sole Government above Mexico and below Canada, One Nation, indivisible.

One of the Soldiers who had seen to that task personally was now riding west, in the State of Nevada, the Newest state of the Union. The Nevada legislature voted to join the Union in the middle of the war.

This soldier was an officer, A Captain. This union army Captain was now called a "Trouble shooter", assigned to roam at liberty looking for what were termed,

"Clear and present threats to the God given civil rights of American citizens on an open ended basis".

The officer's name was Captain Emily Jane Gordon.

She carried papers that entitled her to draw ammunition, supplies, and troop support if needed; in addition, her papers entitled her to fifty gold dollars a month room and board at any army post and a ration of four bottles of high-grade whiskey per month. President Steven E. Johnson and Secretary of War Henry Stanton as well as General of the Army William T. Sherman signed these papers. It bore the seals of all three, just to make sure. Captain Emily Gordon was armed with a brand new repeating rifle made by the Henry arms company and two six shot U. sidearms in custom holsters strapped gunslinger style to her legs.

Her and her horse, Cisco rode into Virginia City in the early morning hours of May first 1866.

She saw the town's only hotel across the street from the local saloon. She tied her horse in front of the saloon. She was dusty and thirsty and tired from the trail; she wanted a beer and a seat that did not eat hay and oats. Later, she would want a bath and a hot meal cooked by someone else's hand and twelve hours in the softest bed, this town had.

Most often, this caused her to come into conflict with white men from the southern states who fled west and did not get the telegram that their side lost the war. It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it.

Captain Gordon walked in and told the barkeep,

"Beer, on draught." She waited for him to pour it and began to grow impatient. He not only was not pouring the beer, but he was standing there STARING at her. Finally, she mustered her most patient and reasonable voice, as she held up a quarter dollar silver coin and asked,

"May I please have a glass of beer?"

The cold glass of beer appeared before her and she gave the man the silver coin. She turned and walked to a table in the back and sat down to relax and cool off.

The Captain sat in the back in the hopes of being unobserved. Then she sat and thought about things.

Her husband, William James Gordon joined the Union Army in 1861 and was given a commission because he was Harvard educated and a professional man. He marched off with General George McClellan but came home unexpectedly when the war came to their doorstep in 1863. She and her husband lived in Gettysburg Pennsylvania.

Emily watched him fall in the line at the stone fence, killed by a Confederate sniper. She went to him as he lay in the medical tent. He was dying. They shared a tender moment and kissed as he died in her arms

Emily dragged him from the tent and stripped off her clothes, changing into his uniform and using his saber to cut her hair. Then 'William Gordon' reported for duty telling them that it was just a graze and 'he' was ready to fight.

Emily was discovered when she took a minie' ball in the leg at the battle of the wilderness, but General Grant let her serve under her true name for the remainder of the war. She was promoted to Captain and her men were blood loyal to 'Mother Gordon'.

Right up until her company guarded the Union flank at Appomattox courthouse.

General Grant and General Sherman doted on the thrice decorated glory covered female officer and let her keep her honor, her uniform and her commission as a provost officer in the West.

That was how she found herself in uniform in a saloon in Virginia City.

Captain Gordon had been there for an hour and was on her second beer when a big bohunk of a man in a ten-gallon hat walked in with a little fella in a green suede jacket. They didn't see her, very few did unless she was right in front of them. Captain Gordon was very good at not being noticed unless she wanted to be.

Captain Gordon just sat there, listening to everything that was said, taking in all the free-floating information. She was good at that. Through this she learned that the big man was Eric 'Hoss' Cartwright and that the short stack drinking next to him was his younger brother, Joseph 'Little Joe' Cartwright. They were two sons of Benjamin Cartwright who was quite possibly the wealthiest and most influential man in the county.

Finishing her second beer, Captain Gordon left another quarter on the table and left the saloon. Then she led Cisco to the livery stable and had him bedded down. Taking her saddlebags and her gear to the hotel, she went to be checked in.

Two hours later, she had her uniform hanging up and her underthings soaking in a washbasin and she herself was soaking in a tub. Her guns hung nearby where she could get at them in a hurry if she had to. The supper of beef stew, white bread and cold cider had hit the spot, and now she was looking forward to a nice long decadent sleep in a real bed.

The next morning saw the Captain in the general mercantile buying supplies, or rather TRYING to buy supplies. The storekeeper or rather, the storekeeper's wife would not allow it.

"It is neither fitting nor propper for a woman to go around in trousers wearing guns as if she were a common cowboy, and I won't be party to your, your foolishness by feeding you, supplying you and taking your money."

"Ma'am, I am an officer in the United States Army, duly appointed and recognized by the President of the United States. I'm not robbing you or cheating you, I am offering you honest trade for hard gold currency."

"Well I do not want your money; I will not touch the money of a woman of sin."

"I see, well I hope you don't think you're doing me more than an inconvenience. It's not more than six hours hard ride to Fort Meade, and once I get there, they'll hand me all I need and more, and I need not even pay for it. The only thing you will have done is cost yourself the good money I tried to pay you. Fare thee well, Ma'am."

With that, Captain Gordon left the mercantile store and made ready to mount her horse. As she did so, William Beddingfield watched her. He was a Former Confederate Sergeant in Nathan Bedford Forest's army and current Hardcase and unregenerate grudge bearer. He watched that Yankee whore in blue ride away and followed her on his own horse. When she was far away from town He drew the rifle from his rifle boot and aimed at the woman's back. Beddingfield pulled the trigger and watched her fall out of the saddle.

He rode away in a hurry, not stopping to even take from the woman. He did not want to be found with any of her property and connected with her murder.

As he rode away, Captain Gordon groaned and tried weakly to reach Cisco's reins. She stretched out her hand and touched Cisco's hoof before losing consciousness.


	2. Repose

Captain Emily Gordon awoke from a fevered sleep in a large lavish bed. The kind she once slept in by her husband's side. Her fever was broken and as she stirred in bed, she moaned with the effort of movement.

'Mmmm, Where am I?"

A man she did not recognize told her,

"I'm Adam Cartwright, you're on the Ponderosa, my family's ranch, lie still you've been shot. Your fever is broken but you will still be weak from the ordeal."

Emily looked around as the door opened and the short stack entered and spoke to her.

"My older brother, Hoss, and I found you and your horse out between here and town; do you know who might have wanted you dead Miss?"

"Captain, Captain Emily Gordon, United States Army. There is a rather long list of no accounts and saddle tramps that would like to see me south of the topsoil. If any of them was in town when I was, they probably dry gulched me and rode off, left me for dead."

"Well, uh, Captain, we'd like it if you'd rest easy and let yourself get better for awhile before you get too exited."

That came from Adam. Little Joe bore a tray of soup and bread from Hap Sing and advised, Emily to,

"Eat up, you need to get some strength back, I'm serious, Hap Sing'll raise all kinds of Cain if you turn down his soup."

Emily sat up wincing at a twinge of pain and started in on the sickbed meal. The two men, Adam and Little Joe went downstairs to speak to their father and find out about this woman who wore an army officer's uniform.

Ben Cartwright, Patriarch of the clan and emperor of the Ponderosa, read through her official papers and shook his head in wonderment. When his oldest and youngest sons came downstairs, they told their father,

"Well, Pa, the fever has broken and she's having a little something to eat, so I think the worst is over. All the same, she WAS back shot, so it's not a bad idea to keep her around for as long as we have to."

"I was going to as a matter of course, Joe, but that's not what I have on my mind. I've been reading her papers and it certainly appears as if she is an authentic Army Officer, the papers, she carries call her a 'trouble shooter' It seems she is tasked with making sure people are not maltreated or abused whenever she encounters it happening."

Hoss came in from the stable and told his brothers and father,

"That lady sure has one fine animal, that horse and it's livery are the finest I have ever seen, Joe, you're the best judge of horseflesh around here, why don't you go take a look at it, see if you don't agree."

Later, Hoss we're talking about the lady or rather the Captain in question, it looks like she really is a Captain in the U.S. Army."

Hoss was thunderstruck and showed it.

"A woman, in the army, how can they do that, I thought she was just dressed up for pretend."

Their father informed Eric that,

"According to these papers and letters Captain Emily Gordon is a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army and has been ever since the battle of the wilderness. The President seems to have tasked her with sticking up for people who don't have anyone to stick up for them."

Little Joe pointed out,

"Well, that is evidenced by how she wound up here; someone obviously wanted her to stop that pesky breathing habit of hers."

Adam asked,

"SO what did the Doctor have to say when he looked in on her, pa?"

"Well, he said the Captain was very lucky. The bullet hit muscle and never came near anything vital. Other than the risk of blood poisoning from the bullet, she should be fine. All she needs is time, and that we can give her.

Hoss proved he was smarter than many gave him credit for as he pointed out,

"Whoever took that shot at her would have seen her fall, they might think she's dead now. That ought to give her a good breather. The Captain ought to be able to get better right enough."


	3. Revelation

Four days after Emily woke up in the guest bedroom of the Cartwright's lavish frontier style house she felt strong enough to leave her bed. Emily decided that it was time to go because her legs felt smothered and she could not seem to move them on her own. Emily knew muscles could fail you if you did not use them and so she threw her covers off herself and used her hands to maneuver herself and swing her legs over the side, then she used her arms to push on the headboard and stand up.

She let go of the headboard and collapsed in a heap to the floor. Captain Emily Gordon's legs were as useless as so much dead wood. She knew they were there, she could see them right there connected to her lower torso and on either side of her Venus' cleft. That did her no good. They did not work, they would not carry her, and she rubbed at them franticly and realized she could feel them in her hands but could not feel her hands on her legs.

The door burst open and Hoss and Adam came in because they heard the crash. The two men saw her on the floor, her nightdress bunched up around her hips and still rubbing at her legs. Emily looked at them in stark horror and almost shouted at them with tears in her eyes,

"I can't feel my legs! I can't feel them, it's as if they are not even there, they won't hold me up and I can't even feel them, they're like two dead things hooked to my body. I CAN'T run, I can't ride, I CAN'T EVEN WALK!"

Then she burst into tears.

The two men helped her back into bed and then Hoss ran to get his father and tell him the news. Ben Cartwright was out supervising the lands with his youngest little Joe when he found out about Captain Gordon's paralysis. The answer was obvious, nerve damage. The Doctor warned him this was a possibility, but that it was remote. Little Joe pointed out that,

"Well, Pa, a remote possibility is STILL a possibility."

"I know Joe, I know. Now there is work to be done. Hard work. She'll need things and we'll give them to her, also someone had better tell the Army about this. Her mission is over and she needs to learn how to live the rest of her life."

I guess someone should tell her, Pa, would you like me to do it?"

"No, son, I'll handle it. For now we treat her with respect and honor, we call her by rank and surname, and we treat her as an Officer until someone from the Army tells her to her face that she is no longer a member of it."

Ben ordered the best wheelchair money could buy, leg braces to help her manipulate her limbs when she needed to and plenty of skirts, petticoats and underthings to help her preserve her modesty, even thought she could no longer wear the uniform.

Hoss looked in on Emily two days later. She was just sitting up in bed staring at the walls. Hap Sing told the big man,

"She no eat, She no sleep, She no say nothing to nobody. It almost like she dead."

Hoss voiced aloud,

"I know, Hop Sing, I know, I just wish I knew what to do for her is all."

Emily could not get her husband out of her mind. When they met, he had been like the second half of her own soul. The two people became almost as if they were one person with two bodies. When he joined the army, he told her that the United State's republic experiment was a sacred holy thing, something that had to be preserved at any cost. She supported him to the Nth degree.

When he died by the sniper's bullet at the stone fence she made his cause into hers and dedicated herself to spending the rest of her life fulfilling William's cause. Preserving the Republic and, once that was done, doing her best to honor it's promise.

Now, Emily could not do that, and it was only a matter of time until the army sent someone to hand her, her walking papers. When the phrase entered her mind, Emily began laughing hysterically.

Adam began to realize that her body was broken and if something was not done, her sanity would be the next to break.


	4. Ordeal

Captain Emily Gordon was sitting up in her wheelchair looking at Benjamin Cartwright. She was dressed in her uniform tunic and a light blue full skirt and slippers. Her hair was done up in a bun and her face was modestly made up. She had been helped downstairs by Adam and Hoss. The family patriarch was speaking to her.

"Captain Gordon, According to the Doctor in town, you have nerve damage. The blood is flowing to your legs, but your brain can't talk to them or give them orders. Now, there have been cases of nerves repairing themselves, but those are very rare and tend to be nomenclatural at best. I would not hold out much hope."

To Emily his voice sounded far away. He sounded as if he was shouting down to her from the top of a well and she was at it's bottom. Even so, she heard him and understood. The understanding of his words was like a physical blow. Soon someone from the Army, probably an officer from Fort Mead would come and they would tell her that she was dismissed from the service due to physical disability. Another fractured Soldier, another broken toy.

For as long as she wore the uniform and served the Army, she served William and it was as if he was still with her. She took up his mission and so she felt as if she was still with him. Now, though that mission was gone, it was over and she was just another old broken soldier with nothing left to do but take the rest of her life to die.

After all, of these years, Emily Gordon would finally have to come to terms with the death of her husband.

This would be far more difficult for her than coming to terms with losing the use of her legs. The Doctor from Virginia city came out the next day and told her that, with time her legs could get better, that the damaged nerves might repair themselves if she took care of them and did the exercises he talked about. Emily thought he was either joking or crazy.

Even so, the leg movement therapy and back exercises would give her something to do, and that would keep her from sinking into the despair of total hopelessness, so she decided to do them.

Talking with Ben and his sons helped a lot, but not completely. How could they understand about meeting someone like William and then becoming one with them and then losing them?

That was when Ben told her about his three wives.

"Captain, No, Emily, do you honestly believe you are the only one that has had to deal with the loss of some you love that deeply?"

Emily listen with both surprise and sympathy as Ben told her about losing his first wife, then his second and his third. Each of his sons was born to a different woman and he was a widower thrice over. Emily was barely able to deal with this once, let alone thrice over. This man was a tower of strength. His sons were apples from that same tree. Hoss the affable good-natured gentle giant. Then there was Joseph or Little Joe as he was called, He was a jovial youngster and a bit of a smart Alec, but all the same, he seemed more than able to handle himself in any trouble. Finally, there was Adam Cartwright. Ben's first born son and very nearly a second version of the man himself. Seriously, strong, caring and wise. The day would come when Adam would be the master of this house and these lands, but he seemed in no hurry for that day to come.

Many men Emily had met would happily have killed their fathers to possess lands like the Ponderosa, but not Adam.

Emily realized very early on that she cared a great deal for these four men, but at the same time, she knew she was not in love with any of them. She loved them, yes, but Emily was not IN LOVE with them. There was no romantic feeling there. Everyone on this land was a special person, even Hop Sing, the kitchen helper and houseman. Emily learned rather quickly to eat every bite of food he put in front of her risking weight gain was far better than risking angering this diminutive Asian.

Emily played chess with Adam and talked about philosophy with Ben and told Joseph about her own life and with Hoss she talked about animals and the beauty of the natural world. All of them were educated men and very well rounded. Even Hoss was far smarter than he wanted to let on. Hoss told Emily in private,

"I HAVE read all of my father's books and I could probably run this place and supervise the workmen myself if I had to, but I don't. I have the rest of my family and for as long as that remains the case, I don't see why I have to be anything other that 'good old Hoss' the affable lummox. As it happens, I LIKE being underestimated so often."

One day, almost two weeks after she had been shot from her horse, Emily awoke and realized the bottom of her left foot itched. It itched like the devil.

Emily reached down and scratched madly at the sole of her foot and felt the itch abate. That was when she realized that feeling was returning to her feet and her legs. She asked Hoss and Joseph to build her two freestanding rails that would be waist high to her. Hoss was dubious until she told him that she could feel her legs and if she worked them and worked at standing and walking, she might be able to restore the use of them.

"Then I can get my self back on my horse and cease feeding off your family's cost like a pensioner."

After two more weeks of hard physical work, she could wiggle her toes and after another week, Emily could move her legs. Soon, she would be walking again. Soon she would be on her feet and back on the job, but Emily realized it was different now. Now, she was no longer just an empty vessel for her dead husband. She would keep working and serving, but in a different spirit. A spirit of caring and love for America and Americans and not a spirit of vengeance.

Ben told her that the Commanding officer of Fort Mead, Colonel Bridgeman had simply placed her on medical leave pending a possible recovery. Emily thought about that and then remembered a Major Bridgeman, Her Husband's C.O. and then hers as well during the war.

It certainly seemed as if Esprit de Corps was on her side.


	5. Ressurection

Captain Emily Gordon was walking now. She walked around the house with a cane and she walked the grounds with the help of her wheelchair, holding the back of it. She also occasionally rode Cisco around the Ponderosa with Ben or one of the boys. The scope of their lands and wealth was astounding, Timber, Cattle, Mining of Silver and other semi precious metals. Benjamin Cartwright may well have been the richest man in the state of Nevada, or at least one of the richest.

She wondered at his knowledge of military courtesy and learned from his sons that Ben had been a major in the U.S. Army commissioned during the Mexican American war.

He was, in essence a brother officer.

He told her that a man had been in town. Most notably in the saloon, making a nuisance of himself and occasionally getting into punch ups. The man's name was Billy Beddingfield and he wore the hat and tunic of a Confederate Sergeant in the Army of Alabama.

He was bragging about having killed 'the Yankee whore' in a fair fight.

Emily suggested letting the news spread that she was still alive, but that she was lame and a pensioner out on the Ponderosa, He would come out to finish his work and then she would deal with him.

All four men did not question her right to settle accounts with the man. Ben knew she would only kill him if he forced her to, thereby making his death a matter of his own choice.

Billy Beddingfield rode out onto the Ponderosa and marveled at the richness of the lands, cursing another 'Yankee dog' for his wealth.

He found Emily on the front porch in her wheelchair. The blanket around her legs and bunched up high around her waist. She was talking with Adam about the book 'Plato's Republic'. She was comparing it to a very recent work by a German named Marx, whom Adam did not yet know of.

Hoss, Little Joe and Ben were no where to be found. At least so it would seem.,

Billy dismounted the nearly swaybacked nag he rode and told her contemptuously,

"Well, lookee here. If'n it aint the Yankee whore, all crippled up in a chair. Aint you a pore li'l thang?"

Beddingfield did not seem to realize that Emily's feet and lower legs under the hem of the blanket were in uniform trousers and cavalry boots.

Adam stood up and asked in a dangerous tone,

"IS there something we can do for you friend?" The quietness and dangerous steel in his voice would have frightened Emily considerably if he were using that tone with her.

"Naw, Yankee, leastwise, not yet. Ah'm here to settle up with this here bluebelly whore, then we can talk about what you're gonna do fer me."

Adam told Emily,

"I'm going to go and check on something in the house, Emily, if you and Sergeant Beddingfield need anything you let me know."

"I'll do that, Adam.

Adam went into the house and armed himself, parking himself by the front window. Little Joe was in the upstairs window facing the yard Hoss was in the barn with a rifle aimed at Billy's back and Ben was in the tree line waiting to see if Emily would need them. The idea was to capture this man and bind him over for trial for shooting a Union Officer and for attempted murder, but if he would not be taken then they were ready for that as well.


	6. Payback

Billy Beddingfield hated black people. Even before the war, he was always harassing and persecuting slaves on errands in town. He never owned any himself and it was a good thing he did not. He would probably have beaten them to death just for looking at him sideways.

He wasn't crazy about Jews, or Catholics or northerners either and in his entire life he only ever found ONE thing to do with women. Of course, the only chance he had ever had to do that with them was when he grabbed them, beat them, and held them down so that he could do his manly duty for them.

Time and again his formation of Confederate Army had been fought and defeated and forced to run from the field by the Yankee dogs.

Twice over, it was this woman, this Yankee whore, this bitch in blue than had whupped them personally. He thought he killed her dead when he back shot her, but now, this was better. Now he could take her and satisfy himself with her body before he killed her.

Then he would get around to these riched up Yankees.

Emily looked at former Sergeant Billy Beddingfield and knew him for the piece of country fried crap he was. Ignorant, illiterate, and barely qualifying as a sentient being, he still took his time lording it over her in his perceived advantage.

"I remember when I first saw you, right after I shot that Yankee Lootenent at Gettysburg."

Reccognition dawned on Emily's face as she realized Beddingfield was the sniper who killed her husband. Beddingfield saw it and smirked,

"That was Yore Man warn't it? I shot yer man an' you dressed up in his bluebelly suit. Well, h'aint yoo the saddest little widow woman in the whole danged world? I shot yore man so you dressed up to play sojer for the whole rest of the war."

"I was still Soldier enough to send you home with your tail between your piss soaked legs two times over."

Beddingfield tried to pull his pistol and made it halfway out of his holster when he saw her two six guns pointed at him, then he watched her, slacked jawed, as she stood up from her chair.

"William Beddingfield, as an officer in the United States Army, I am placing you under arrest, by the authority vested in me by the United States Provost command.. Now, drop your weapon and submit for arrest."

Hoss gripped the rifle he held angrily, he wanted to pull the trigger on this varmint; He wanted to DEAL with him. Little Joe felt the same way and it was only the presence of Captain Gordon that kept him fro shooting.

"Beddingfield, I'm not going to shoot you, as much as I might want to, I'm not going to. Instead I am going to arrest you, testify against you and see to it that you do the hardest time that there is on God's green Earth.

Beddingfield still had not dropped his weapon and indeed seemed stubbornly determined to shoot her. Instead of shooting him, Captain Gordon holstered her weapons and told him,

" strongly suggest, that you drop your weapon, Beddingfield, if you don't you are doing to die."

"Who'se gonna shoot me, you done put yore guns away, so who's gonna kill me?"

That was when a strong deep voice sounded behind him.

"Put it down, redneck. Put it down right now, or you're going to get shot from so many different directions, your body aint gonna know witch way to fall."

Four men were pointing guns at the ex Confederate Soldier, including the black haired men he saw on the porch. The gray haired man stepped to face him and told him,

"I am Ben Cartwright, and this is the Ponderosa, MY land, mine and my sons. Now you are going to do as you are told or I am personally going to blow your brains out for trespassing, I jest you not!"

Billy counted the guns. Two Winchester rifles, three Colt six guns, and four very scary looking men. The gun fell from his grip and he fell to his knees.

Captain Emily Gordon was satisfied. She had no need for primitive brute vengeance. Her desire was for justice. To see Beddingfield pay the law for his crimes.

Beddingfield found himself being clapped in irons and put on his horse. Captain Gordon and Adam Cartwright were going to escort him to Virginia City where Sherriff Roy Coffey would keep him until the Army could take responsibility for him.

As Captain Emily Gordon packed her things and made ready for the road, Little Joe approached her and asked her,

"So where you headed, Captain?"

"First, back to Virginia City with my prisoner, then on to fort Meade, probably escorting him to military tribunal. After that, I'll be back on the job, doing the mission."

"So, just back to the old grind, as if this whole thing never happened?"

Emily thought about that, stopping packing long enough to say,

"No, you know, it feels different now. as if I've finally laid William to rest. Now I'll be doing it for me, because I think it is the right thing to do. Joe, you and your family did a great deal more for me than just help me heal from a back injury. You helped me grieve and realize William was gone and that I owed it to him to live my life, to be happy, the way he would have wanted me to. Now, I can do that. I owe you folks that, thank you."

"Well, just because you're hitting the trail, don't think we won't miss you. Adam finally had somebody he could talk about books with and Hoss loved that horse of yours."

"And what about you, Joe?"

"Well I have to admit, that once you came out of your shell, some of your jokes were pretty good. Especially the one about the rabbit and the bear."

Well I will miss you guys, and if I can, I'll see what I can't do about stopping in if my tour of duty brings me back by this way., If nothing else, Hap Sing's Roast beef is positively ambrosia."

"Well he'll be glad to hear that because he's not letting you leave without a basket full of picknic sandwitches of it."

By this time both were by her horse and she had cinched her gear in place and made ready to mount up the box lunch in question strapped in place. Captain Emily Gordon put one foot in the stirrup and swug up onto Cisco's back, then she took the reins and shouted, "Come on, Cisco, HOOAH!"

Then she rode out of sight with Beddingfield and Adam in tow toward Virginia city.


End file.
